The Gate’s usual reinvention of its
space for this UK première of Falk Richter’s play goes to new
lengths. As we wait for admission, an audio loop is played supposedly
advertising the modern, gated development in which the play is set; we
enter past a series of display boards similarly hymning its delights.
Which makes Naomi Dawson’s broad, shallow, sideways-on set rather
puzzling: would today’s successful and slightly paranoid folk really
choose to live in Denys Lasdun-style concrete slabs?

Of course, Richter’s point is that even such a designer paradise (“we
haven’t got a sea, but they’ll build us one here soon”) cannot keep out
the demons, whether they are real – intruders from the violent world
beyond the walls – or internal – disillusionment and paranoid
insecurity, as exhibited respectively by Man and Woman. (They have a
teenage son called, guess what?, yep, Boy.)

I’m afraid this is bourgeois-dystopia-by-numbers, and neither Richter
(in David Tushingham’s unfussy translation) nor director Maria Aberg
does much to make this particular bleak vision a distinctive one. The
central performances are stronger than either play or production really
deserve, with initial dramatic promise as Geraldine Alexander’s Woman
interrogates her husband (with lines written in a style midway between
Pinter and Mamet: “You’re...” – “What? Yes” – “Is everything OK
with...” – “With me, you mean?”) in a tone of smiling reasonableness
which belies her near-hysterical worries. However, the barriers soon
fall, Alexander grows more shrill about the horrible prospects if they
lose their place in the community and Jonathan Cullen’s Man ceases to
hide his dissatisfaction with the job that earns their place there and
the dislocated, atomised lifestyle itself. Aberg over-eggs the pudding
with touches such as impressionistic video montages which include a
literal wolf at the door.

One barrier, moreover, remains in place. The entire 75-minute play
takes place behind a picture window which runs the length of the
theatre; at one point, Woman opens one panel to take a brief smoke
break but the noises from “outside” (i.e. where we are sitting) disturb
her and she retreats again. This is unsubtle fourth-wall symbolism, and
also sends out confused signals when the panel is opened for the
curtain call: “We want you to feel alienated during the performance,
but we’ll take your applause in person.” Hmmm.